My Kingdom As Great
by MeowBeth
Summary: Sarah fought her way through the labyrinth and defeated Jareth. But she didn't do it alone. A little book gave her an idea of what to expect, and showed her how to defeat Jareth. Someone had defeated him before Sarah. But who? Jareth/OC Jareth/Sarah
1. Waiting

My Kingdom As Great

_Summary: Sarah fought her way through the Labyrinth and saved her brother. But she didn't do it alone. A little book gave her an idea of what to expect, and told her exactly how to defeat Jareth. Someone had defeated him before. But who? And why had they written the book?_

Prologue

Jareth sat is his throne room, steadfastly ignoring the milling crowd of rambunctious goblins that passed themselves off as his courtiers. As he mused, Jareth deftly tossed a crystal ball from fingertip to fingertip. Centuries of practice had gifted him with the enviable ability to be pensive under any circumstances, and this ability allowed him to tune out the excited shrieks of a newcomer. Until the newcomer tripped over himself and landed in a heap on top of one of Jareth's idly tapping feet.

Silence reigned across the room as Jareth slowly turned his gaze from the glimpse of the outside world he could see from a nearby window to land on the quivering ball of a goblin still on his foot. Pensive expression completely gone, Jareth tilted his foot up off the ground and allowed the goblin to slide off his foot before he kicked him in the gut.

The goblin coughed and pulled himself up into a sitting position. He fidgeted for a few minutes, trying to gather what little courage he had before glancing up at his king. Jareth's face was impassive, but the goblin could almost feel the ire radiating from him. The goblin gulped, and then muttered something under his breath. Jareth's right eyebrow lifted, and his mouth turned down into a small frown. The goblin blanched and muttered again, louder, "Ichibob says to tell you that he was told that someone saw someone else buy one of those books you wanted us to watch and that that person gave the book to some woman who gave it to a man who gave it to a young girl for her birthday and that the girl has been reading it and that he can feel something familiar about her."

The surrounding goblins tittered nervously as they tried to figure out what that meant; they shushed each other noisily when Jareth leaned back into his throne with a small chuckle. The goblin shuddered when Jareth suddenly leaned forward and grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him forward until they were nose to nose. Jareth smiled and handed him one of his crystal balls. "Tell Ikybib to put this in the girl's room."

The goblin nodded eagerly, thrilled that his king was in a much better mood and that apparently he wasn't going to be punished. He yelped when Jareth dropped him, and scrambled to keep a hold on the delicate ball as he landed on his rump. When he stood up, ball still firmly gripped in his hand, the surrounding goblins cheered and someone threw a chicken at him. He bobbed respectfully at Jareth and, clutching the ball to his chest in as tight of a grip as he could manage without crushing it, ran through the gauntlet of curious goblins.

Jareth watched him go with his small smile still intact, before he glanced down at another crystal ball from his collection. The image of a young woman dressed in a white ball gown with long, dark hair glared back at him, her head held high, defiant to the last.

"Have you come back to me?" He whispered, as the goblins returned to their state of frenzied, and loud, merrymaking, "After all this time, will I finally have you?"

His smile faded as he rubbed the crystal, longing and rage filling him as the woman in the ball laughed derisively. He scowled at the crystal ball and allowed the image to dissipate. "You will not escape from me this time. I will not let you. You will love me."


	2. In All Fairness

My Kingdom As Great

_I apologize for taking so long to update. I had a lot going on. I hope you enjoy this chapter._

Chapter 1

She had known that she was important, meant for something great, from the moment her mother had left her and her father. Her mother was a beautiful, famous actress, who had shed the life she shared with her boring husband and little daughter, as a butterfly sheds its cocoon, for a life of wild parties and handsome young men. Sarah hadn't been able, even then, to blame her mother for the choice she had made.

Even as young as she had been, Sarah had known that the quiet suburban life her father craved was slowly killing her vivacious mother, and that her mother's dissatisfaction was ruining her father's joy in accomplishing the few goals he had. And so when her mother had left, Sarah's only gripe had been that her mother had neglected to take her daughter with her. Because Sarah had known that she took more after her mother than her father, and that the life that had stifled her mother would soon stifle her.

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Sprawled across the length of her bed, Sarah stared at the ceiling as tears streamed down her face. Every fiber of her being knew that she was special, but she didn't know why. And no one else saw anything in her either. She was at a loss.

She slowly rolled over onto her stomach, carefully repositioning the small book currently clutched to her chest to lie under her chin. The well-loved book had been given to her for her eighth birthday by her mother, five years ago. It was the first of many such gifts that her mother had sent her, and was one of three that Sarah cherished above anything else.

The book was the first given and the most used. Another was a small music box that contained a dark-haired girl in a voluminous white gown. The last had grown to be the most important object in her possession. It was a small, clear crystal ball. When she had first received it, she had tossed it aside in favor of some other, rather frivolous, toy. But as time had gone on, she had found herself drawn to it.

Sometimes, if the lighting was just right and she held it at just the right angle, she saw images in it. Visions of an older girl, beautiful and fierce, at the center of everyone's attention. Sarah had spent many hours staring at the ball, imagining herself as the young woman contained within. Imagining that the woman was the same as the girl inside her music box, and that this girl was the subject of her little book.

But the crystal had disappeared a week ago. And not only had Sarah been unable to relocate her lost treasure, but she was certain that whatever had taken her crystal, for she knew that there was no way she could have possibly lost it, was also after her beloved book. She had returned to her room one afternoon after fruitlessly searching the rest of her house on the off chance that her parents had decided to movie it somewhere on her, in time to watch something tug her book partially under her bed.

She had barely been able to grab hold of it to yank it away from whatever foul creature was trying to take it from her. And when she had peered under her bed, after tucking the book into the waistband of her jeans to ensure that she would notice if something tried to steal it from her again, she had been unable to see anything.

Since then, she had heard soft scuttling sounds and muffled whispers following her about. She was terrified. Something was trying to steal her very dreams from her, and she knew that there was little she could do. Her father and step mother were unable to hear the strange noises, or see the quick flickers of movement of the creatures that stalked her. They were completely oblivious to anything lately, in any case.

Sarah felt alone and frightened. Her gut told her that if she let the creatures take her book from her, then her fate, the important events that lay in store for her, would not happen. But she didn't know why. And so she kept the book with her at all times, and had not taken a shower for five days for fear that the book would be taken from her while she bathed.

The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs warned Sarah of the approach of her parents. She sat up, sitting on the book, and wiped the tears from her face with her sleeve. A soft knock on her door preceded her father and step mother's entrance.

They stood awkwardly just inside her room, her step mother standing a little behind her father. Her step mother glanced up at her father, before her father cleared his throat and began speaking. "Hello, Sarah. Karen and I have something to tell you."

Sarah stared at them, wondering what news they had that would make them so nervous. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, her father spoke again. "We, that is to say…"

"I'm pregnant. You're going to be an older sister." Karen interrupted, staring at Sarah in a vaguely challenging manner.

Sarah stayed silent, shock chilling her to the core. Her father said something, but Sarah wasn't paying any attention to him. Her only thought was that this was the end of her. From this point on, she would no longer be her family's focus. She would just be a second daughter, not particularly distinctive or special. She would be nothing.

Her father said something else, raising his pitch at the end to signal a question. Sarah nodded absently, hoping that this would be a good enough answer for him. Apparently it was, because he and Karen began speaking back and forth, no longer needing any reaction from her.

She felt like the world was pressing in on her, crushing her, drowning her. Eventually her parents left, closing her door behind them, and Sarah slumped, fresh tears burning her already sore eyes.

Slowly she calmed down, and carefully reached for her book. Only to find it gone. She froze in shock for a moment, before she launched herself from her bed and began throwing her stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows from the bed. The book was not there.

She slumped to the floor and peered under the bed. Her tear-blurred eyes couldn't focus well enough to discern one small book from the gloom. Sobbing, she angrily rubbed the tears from her eyes and looked again. It still wasn't there.

Collapsing the rest of the way to the floor, she sobbed brokenly. It was many minutes before her sobs quieted enough for her to hear the hushed mutters and whispers of the creatures that had stolen her book. She lurched to her knees and frantically sought out the owners of the voices. But could see nothing.

Just as she was about to give up, she caught a glimpse of a small shadow flitting behind her mirror. She crawled to her desk and was about to smash her mirror in a desperate attempt to catch the thief, when she realized that her book, her precious book, was right in front of her face. They, whoever or whatever they were, had stolen her book from her bed, and placed it in its usual place. But why? She racked her brain, but could think of no reason why they would have done so.

The whispers and mutters still came from all around her, but they didn't instill in her the same blind terror that they had before. After several minutes of thought failed to help her think of anything, she decided that asking couldn't do any harm. She cleared her throat nervously, knowing that her voice was going to crack and break from all the crying she had done that day.

"Excuse me," she said softly, clutching her book to her chest once more. "But why did you not take it from me?"

The constant buzz of surrounding conversation stopped instantly. With only one voice stopping slightly out of synch with the others. "… now the child's come."

Sarah waited silently, hoping that they would forget about her presence eventually. But she didn't hear one more noise the rest of that night, or the next night. A week after what she could only assume was the disappearance of her invisible stalkers, she finally gave up on being given the answers to her many questions.

With Karen and her father wrapped up in their encroaching bundle of joy, Sarah found herself with plenty of time to herself, plenty of time to think about recent events. The feeling of importance that had been fading was now as strong as it had ever been before, and was perhaps even stronger. Her crystal was gone, but her book had been almost stolen and then returned. And the one fragment of conversation she had caught from the people who knew what was going on. Something about a child coming.

Sarah sighed and rolled onto her stomach on her bed. She could still make no sense of the information that she had. She was still no closer to figuring out what it was she was supposed to do. Making a disgruntled noise, she pulled her book out from under her pillows and read it for the first time since all of this had started.

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A few months later found Sarah sprawled out across her bed again. From downstairs came the muffled sounds of conversation. Her parents were throwing a party to celebrate the upcoming birth of their child. Her father and Karen had told her that she was welcome to join them. But she didn't particularly feel like celebrating.

She sighed and flung her arm over her face. It had been months. Her fourteenth birthday had come and gone, and the sense of expectancy within her still grew. But she had no idea what she was to do. It wasn't fair that she had to go through her life knowing she was different, but being unable to discover why or do anything.

She grumbled to herself, and then ran over the few clues that she had. Her book was important. Little, almost invisible, people had been following her around and stealing her stuff. She had almost lost her chance to do… whatever it was she was supposed to do. But a child's coming had changed that. It made no more sense now than it had months ago.

A burst of raucous laughter from the people gathered downstairs startled her, and she glowered at her closed door. It wasn't fair that everyone in the world was happy but her. It wasn't fair that she was no longer going to be an only child. It wasn't fair that her mother had left her here. It wasn't fair that no one thought anything of her, that she was invisible to everyone who should be paying attention to her.

"It's not fair!" she yelled, flinging one of her stuffed animals at the door.

A slight lull in the volume from below gave her hope that maybe someone had heard her, that someone would come check on her, miserable and alone in her darkening room. But after a moment someone laughed and the conversation continued as if it had never stopped.

Sarah sobbed and rolled over, burying her face into her pillow. Some time passed before she began to feel uncomfortable. Someone was watching her. She raised her head from her pillow and peered about. There were no whispers, or quick moving shadows. Whatever it was that was watching her now, it wasn't the same as the creatures who had stolen her crystal and tried to steal her book.

Her feeling of unease intensified, even as she was considering ignoring it. A slight tap on her window made her jump, though normally she wouldn't have paid attention to it, seeing as how the branches of the tree next to the window often made such noises. She turned her face towards the window, and froze.

A beautiful white owl was perched on a fairly sturdy branch. Watching her. She found herself unable to look into its dark eyes, and couldn't think of any reason why. It watched her in silence for long minutes, before it gracefully launched itself from the branch. It took her a while to remember to breathe, and longer yet to think.

A thought struck her suddenly, and she scrambled from her bed to flick on the light. After doing so she flung herself back onto her bed and frantically flipped through the pages of the book. She stopped towards the beginning and read aloud. "The servants cross themselves and speak of unnatural things at the sight of the white owl that has recently appeared in our castle. It comes out during the day as readily as it does during the night. It frightens them more than one would think. They would lock me up and have me under constant guard if they knew that it appears to be following me."

A hysterical giggle escaped Sarah as she collapsed back onto her bed. The giggle was followed by another and another, until she was clutching her sides and rolling with laughter. It all made sense now. Her dreams weren't just dreams. They were going to come true. She was the beautiful girl that the Goblin King fell in love with. She would be her unborn brother's, for now she knew that her father and Karen's child must be a boy, rescuer. She would have magic and power. She would be wanted and feared.

She would have everything she ever wanted. As long as she resented her step-mother and father, as long as she could hate her brother enough to wish him away, as long as she could love him enough to want him back. She smiled. It would be a piece of cake.


	3. Perhaps

My Kingdom As Great

Chapter 2

"For my will is as strong as yours… And my kingdom as great… Damn. I can never remember that line."

Jareth chuckled softly in his mind as he watched the girl frantically flip through the book. Every time she attempted to memorize the lines she believed would someday defeat him, she always managed to forget the most important part. It boded well for him.

Though he did have to admit, even if only to himself, that his amusement also stemmed from the fact that the girl before him was nothing at all like the woman she was pretending to be. This girl had no kingdom and had no initiative to do what was necessary to get the things she wanted from life. She was a spoiled brat who believed that memorizing lines would one day save her.

The woman she so strongly resembled had been a noblewoman, who had somehow managed to convince her father that educating her would be a boon to their keep in a time when even men were rarely educated. She had been strong willed, passionate, and unwilling to bend knee to anyone. Least of all him.

The words the girl strove to burn into her mind had come from the woman's throat spontaneously. She had had no time to prepare, no time to plan out her strategy. Instead, she had cut her way through his defenses, found allies among his people, and then had overcome him. There had been nothing he could do or say that would have convinced her to stay with him.

He was fairly certain that if he changed into his human form right now, the girl would drop to her knees and beg him to take her away. He sighed. Humans changed so much, and yet remained so similar throughout their lifetimes. Even when they were reborn.

The girl before him was nothing like her past life, and yet she was just like her. Her hair and eyes were the same, the girl even had the same mannerisms as the woman she had once been. And might, perhaps, become again.

That was the crux of it. No matter how many differences he could spot between them, no matter how many times he almost decided to give up on the girl, there was always some similarity that caused the breath to catch in his chest. That caused him to wait for the girl to grow up, to wait for her to realize her potential, to wait for her to give in to him and finally be his.

This spoiled girl was not the abandoned daughter of an actress. She was not the whiny, self centered brat being raised by her well off suburban father. She was not the tortured, artistic young woman, misunderstood by everyone around her. She was none of these things because, deep down inside of her soul, she was the woman who had bested him.

The sudden flight of the girl and her dog startled him out of his musings. He watched them dart away and considered following. But he decided against it, knowing that nothing would happen until after the girl's parents had been gone for a few hours. There was no reason for him to leave his perch until then.


End file.
